Workers can't be fired for being gay or transgender, Supreme Court rules

[mystery-ak]

Workers can't be fired for being gay or transgender, Supreme Court rules
By Harper Neidig - 06/15/20 10:15 AM EDT

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-3 in a landmark decision that gay and transgender employees are protected by civil rights laws against employer discrimination.

A set of cases that came before the court had asked the justices to decide whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination on the basis of "sex," applies to gay and transgender people.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion for the six-member majority, said that it does.

"Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender," Gorsuch wrote. "The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

This breaking news report will be updated.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/502729-supreme-court-rules-lgbt-workers-protected-by-civil-rights-law

[dfwgator]

Chief Judas Roberts strikes again.....Thanks Dumbya.

[mountaineer]

Ben Shapiro  @benshapiro
This Gorsuch decision is not originalist in any way; he acknowledges as much. It is simply a bad, outcome-driven legal decision. And it throws religious liberty, free speech, and employment law into complete turmoil.
10:58 AM · Jun 15, 2020

Ben Shapiro  @benshapiro
The Alito dissent is a devastating rebuttal, but logic is of course of no account here. Those who love the outcome will celebrate, because the first rule of legal interpretation is that the law comes last.
11:08 AM · Jun 15, 2020·

[mountaineer]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf

[mountaineer]

Supreme Court Delivers a Troubling Decision Against Harris Funeral Homes—and Against Women
By Sarah Kramer
June 15, 2020

Americans should be able to rely on what the law says.

Unfortunately, it seems the U.S. Supreme Court does not agree.

Today, the Supreme Court ruled against our client Harris Funeral Homes. In doing so, the Court has delivered a truly troubling decision: Unelected officials and courts can effectively rewrite laws—forcing Americans to guess what the law means—including something as fundamental as the meaning of “sex.”

Alliance Defending Freedom has represented Harris Funeral Homes since 2013. That year, a male funeral director expressed the intent to begin dressing and presenting as a woman at work while interacting with grieving families.  ...

Redefining “sex” to mean “gender identity” creates chaos, with widespread consequences for everyone.

    * It undermines dignity, privacy, and equal opportunities for women.
    * It could compel professionals from all walks of life to refer to colleagues with pronouns and other sex-specific terms according to gender identity rather than biology.
    * It puts employers like Tom in difficult positions—requiring them to treat men who believe themselves to be women as if they are in fact women, even if that results in violating the bodily privacy rights of other employees.

The bottom line is that ignoring biological reality in our laws threatens our freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech.

There’s more. By ruling in the similar case decided today that “sex” in federal employment law also includes “sexual orientation,” the Court made it more difficult for employers and employees who hold the longstanding, honorable belief that marriage is only between one man and one woman. ...

Alliance Defending Freedom.

[mountaineer]

Tom Fitton  @TomFitton
BREAKING: Six justices of Supreme Court attack our republican form of government --rewrite federal civil rights law, in exercise of raw judicial power, to change definition of "sex" to "sexual orientation" and "gender identity."  Legislating from the bench is an abuse of power.
10:47 AM · Jun 15, 2020·Twitter Web App

There has been years long battle by Left to change federal law to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity. But Supreme Court today short-circuited the democratic process and rewrote the law without a vote of Congress but by a vote of six unelected judges.

A Supreme Court majority essentially ruled today that Congress is a joke. The majority is right, not because they were right to hijack Congress's power to legislate under the Constitution, but because Congress will do nothing about this abusive power grab.

https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/1272541305198063617

[dfwgator]

Why bother with elections anymore?

[Free Vulcan]

This is more egregious than the Obamacare ruling.

There was no way in 1964 that Congress was thinking about gays, and definitely not transgenders. They just wrote new law.

Unfreakingbelievable.

[Smokin Joe]

This is more egregious than the Obamacare ruling.

There was no way in 1964 that Congress was thinking about gays, and definitely not transgenders. They just wrote new law.

Unfreakingbelievable.

Then it is up to Congress to rewrite the law more clearly or abolish it.

What chance do you think there is of that?

Washington D.C. has the highest GLBTQXYZ population percentage in the US, coming in at nearly the 10% that was waved  around years ago.

[Bigun]

Tom Fitton  @TomFitton
BREAKING: Six justices of Supreme Court attack our republican form of government --rewrite federal civil rights law, in exercise of raw judicial power, to change definition of "sex" to "sexual orientation" and "gender identity."  Legislating from the bench is an abuse of power.
10:47 AM · Jun 15, 2020·Twitter Web App

There has been years long battle by Left to change federal law to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity. But Supreme Court today short-circuited the democratic process and rewrote the law without a vote of Congress but by a vote of six unelected judges.

A Supreme Court majority essentially ruled today that Congress is a joke. The majority is right, not because they were right to hijack Congress's power to legislate under the Constitution, but because Congress will do nothing about this abusive power grab.

https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/1272541305198063617

@mountaineer

JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, dissenting.

"There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employ- ment discrimination on any of five specified grounds: “race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)(1). Neither “sexual orientation” nor “gender identity” appears on that list. For the past 45 years, bills have been introduced in Congress to add “sexual orienta- tion” to the list,1 and in recent years, bills have included “gender identity” as well.2 But to date, none has passed both Houses.

Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend Title VII by defining sex discrimination to in- clude both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” H. R. 5, 116th Cong., 1st Sess. (2019), but the bill has stalled in the Senate. An alternative bill, H. R. 5331, 116th Cong., 1st Sess. (2019), would add similar prohibitions but con- tains provisions to protect religious liberty.3 This bill re- mains before a House Subcommittee.

Because no such amendment of Title VII has been en-acted in accordance with the requirements in the Constitu-tion (passage in both Houses and presentment to the Pres- ident, Art. I, §7, cl. 2), Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination because of “sex” still means what it has al- ways meant. But the Court is not deterred by these consti-tutional niceties. Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H. R. 5’s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation.4 A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely en- forcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination be- cause of “sex” is different from discrimination because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to “mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were writ- ten.”

A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpreta- tion of Legal Texts 16 (2012) (emphasis added). If every single living American had been surveyed in 1964, it would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual ori- entation––not to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time.

The Court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevita- ble product of the textualist school of statutory interpreta- tion championed by our late colleague Justice Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The Court’s opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Jus- tice Scalia excoriated––the theory that courts should “up- date” old statutes so that they better reflect the current val- ues of society. See A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 22 (1997). If the Court finds it appropriate to adopt this the- ory, it should own up to what it is doing.5

Many will applaud today’s decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Court’s updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964.

It indisputably did not."

They are absolutely right!  Roberts has apparently come to think that it's the job of the court to legislate where the legislature will not and he desperately needs to be disabused of that notion!

[dfwgator]

Is there any doubt now?

[Smokin Joe]

@mountaineer

JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, dissenting.

They are absolutely right!  Roberts has apparently come to think that it's the job of the court to legislate where the legislature will not and he desperately needs to be disabused of that notion!

It isn't the first time

It was Roberts who rewrote the penalty of Obamacare into a "tax" so he could rule it Constitutional, despite the Nation having been reassured repeatedly by the proponents of the ACA that the penalty was a penalty and not a 'tax just for breathing'.

[Bigun]

It isn't the first time

It was Roberts who rewrote the penalty of Obamacare into a "tax" so he could rule it Constitutional, despite the Nation having been reassured repeatedly by the proponents of the ACA that the penalty was a penalty and not a 'tax just for breathing'.

  I'm well aware!

[aligncare]

If he/she is a good worker, why should we/they care what problems them/they are working through regarding they/their gender and/or sexual identity?

Besides the PITA it raises with the whole ‘address me as’ issue, should an employer look forward to headaches and legal fees when an employee says that he’s ‘confused’ and shows up for work one day wearing a tutu, fire-red fingernails and lashes, and 5-day old beard and you’re thinking of canning him?

How does an employer make the case that this employee is just lazy, late and inept, so I fired him? And not just because that his incongruous choice of sexual/gender identity clashes with his job selling tractors?

[Applewood]

Chief Judas Roberts strikes again.....Thanks Dumbya.

And Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.  So much for at least one of Trump's "conservative" nominees. 

No, I'm not slamming Trump here, but this is why, after being sold snake oil with Roberts I don't trust the official word that judicial appointees are "conservative."  I want to reserve judgment till I see what they do first.

[Free Vulcan]

Nobody, I'm sure except those on the vulturous left who know a big door was opened today, really seems to understand what it means to give transgenders special status and 'civil rights'.

If facts aren't facts, science isn't science, and in this case biology aren't biology, then any enterprising lawyer will now say definitions are what you wish them to be in any situation. They will then be able to manipulate the law in any direction they wish via the courts.

Which renders the concept of law meaningless, because without solid definitions, you have no law.

[libertybele]

And Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.  So much for at least one of Trump's "conservative" nominees. 

No, I'm not slamming Trump here, but this is why, after being sold snake oil with Roberts I don't trust the official word that judicial appointees are "conservative."  I want to reserve judgment till I see what they do first.

 

[EdinVA]

If he/she is a good worker, why should we/they care what problems them/they are working through regarding they/their gender and/or sexual identity?

Besides the PITA it raises with the whole ‘address me as’ issue, should an employer look forward to headaches and legal fees when an employee says that he’s ‘confused’ and shows up for work one day wearing a tutu, fire-red fingernails and lashes, and 5-day old beard and you’re thinking of canning him?

How does an employer make the case that this employee is just lazy, late and inept, so I fired him? And not just because that his incongruous choice of sexual/gender identity clashes with his job selling tractors?

Now that they have achieved protected class status, you cannot fire them UNLESS you can prove your not homophobic....

Next the employer is required to pay the insurance to cover sex changes and therapies.

[truth_seeker]

I accepted a promotion in about 1977, to lead a small group of financial analysts. One provision was to be rid, of a flambouyant gay fellow, who also had  poor attendance, and did lousy work.

Nobody told me how to do it. So I documented his poor performance, and terminated him. He actually thanked me. No word of sexuality.

My superiors compplimented me for doing what they had puzzled about,but had also fialed to do.

This was a Fortune 500 Oil Serviices industry Co. Hq. then in LA, now Hq. in Dallas area.

Later I had another subordinate that was openly gay. He was skilled at his position. And it turned out to me still later, this firm had been fine employing homosexual men. One such was a VP.

That industry runs remote jobsites, with long assignments. Saudi Arabia. Alaska. South Africa.

Those things didn't seem to be problems, then.

[dfwgator]

Now that they have achieved protected class status, you cannot fire them UNLESS you can prove your not homophobic....

Next the employer is required to pay the insurance to cover sex changes and therapies.

Next come the quotas demanding you hire a certain percentage of gays and trannies.

[mountaineer]

If he/she is a good worker, why should we/they care what problems them/they are working through regarding they/their gender and/or sexual identity?

I can see in the funeral home case why it's important to have a certain dress code. Can you picture a grieving family arriving at the business to make arrangements for their loved one's funeral and burial, and they're met by a person who obviously is a man but is wearing a skirt, makeup and earrings?


So sorry for your loss. Would you like to look at casket options?

[dfwgator]

I can see in the funeral home case why it's important to have a certain dress code. Can you picture a grieving family arriving at the business to make arrangements for their loved one's funeral and burial, and they're met by a person who obviously is a man but is wearing a skirt, makeup and earrings?


So sorry for your loss. Would you like to look at casket options?

Difference is, Klinger was trying to get "fired".

[Sighlass]

Only the best my arse.

[roamer_1]

And Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion.  So much for at least one of Trump's "conservative" nominees. 

But but butt, Judges~ So MANY 'conservative' judges!   

SOSDD.

[corbe]

Cancel The USSC

The Market Ticker ® - Commentary on The Capital Markets

2020-06-15 11:56 by Karl Denninger

The rules of statutory construction are quite clear.

Due to the fact that statutes are deliberated over both in committee and on the floor, the words used are presumed to each have been chosen, individually and collectively, for specific purpose.  The only means by which a court -- any court -- can overturn the clear meaning of specific words where one word was chosen and another was not, even if they refer to similar things, is if the outcome of the word(s) chosen would be patently stupid.

With this in hand the decision that came up today is particularly egregious.

The Supreme Court handed a big win to the LGBT community Monday, ruling in a 6-3 decision that an employer who fires a worker for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act -- which already protected people from employer sex discrimination, as well as discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.

Both the words "sex" and "gender" were available to Congress at the time of the Civil Rights Act's passage; neither was novel and both had been known for hundreds of years.  In addition Congress has had decades to revise said law and has not done so.
Gender has some room for interpretation, in that one can express a gender.

Sex is a biological, scientific term.  It is defined by genetics that are fixed at the moment of conception and unalterable.

The Civil Rights Act, interestingly enough, did include matters of choice -- that is, personally modifiable criteria.  Specifically, one can choose one's religion, and alter that choice during their lifetime.  Race, color, national origin and sex are all immutable at or before birth.

"Ours is a society of written laws. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee’s sex when deciding to fire that employee," said the court's opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

And then Gorsuch did exactly that, turning the world on its ear by redefining "sex" to mean whatever you think you are when the meaning of the word sex is scientific and not a function of perception, either yours or someone else's.

Congress has the right and indeed the duty if that was not their intent to go back and make a one-word change.  The Courts are obligated to honor such a change if and when Congress makes it.

But absent that no court, including the Supreme Court, has a valid capacity under our system of government to unilaterally substitute one word for another because they disagree with the result.

This is not the first time the USSC has done this sort of thing; as I noted in the Obamacare decision Roberts did the exact same thing in that he redefined an unconstitutional penalty into an unconstitutional direct tax, which no court has the ability to do.  In fact the legislature can't even do that -- you must instead amend The Constitution itself.

But we let that one stand and thus now we have this.

There is no legitimacy remaining within the US Supreme Court and it is time to cancel it.

Period.

   Permission to post the whole commentary is implied

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=239516